No, I wouldn’t have guessed that a part-time transvestite with an amazingly unlikely popularity level would show up in J.J. Abrams’ new Trek, either, but UGO is reporting that Tyler Perry is playing the head of Starfleet Academy.
The article has a few spoilers and suggests that Abrams is going to be replaying at least one canonical moment in the the Kirk history book…and rewriting it slightly to include the influence of another classic character. Oh, the space-time continuum!
Sadly, I doubt that rewriting will also have Perry appear in a dress. But since we haven’t seen the uniforms yet, I guess I can hold out that this version of the Trek universe is progressive enough to have a cross-dressing Academy head.
I actually can’t say anything about Perry’s abilities as an actor, having studiously avoided all those movies where he plays an old woman, but since we won’t even be seeing much of him in the film (that character can’t have much screen time) it probably won’t matter.
Now, like Devin, I’m ready to just see the damned uniforms, hopefully with people in them.